People in UK saying "high school"

[Davros]

I've noticed this term being used more and more. To me it's "Senior" or "Secondary" school. Schools with the old fashioned divisions have "Lower, Middle and Upper". Even if you follow the American usage it isn't the same as our Senior, i believe it is years 10, 11, 12 and 13. Why are people calling Senior school High school? I know, each to their own blah blah

Why is there a barrack room lawyer on the thread?

What a very rigid worldview she has.

So "Aye" is yes but "Aye right" is no. "How?"is why? and why is the letter Y. You can say why as a question if you want we aren't fussed up here in Scotland. And yes my dc go to High School. No pom poms or Chad Hogans are involved.

I doubt whether, in Scotland or elsewhere, the word “How?” is widely used in place of “Why?”. It might be informally, but generally people are able to shift between informal and formal depending on the context.

I'd forgotten about how as a why... it's been nearly 30 years since I left Scotland.

I recall it was an occasional thing, not a straight substitute, and varied from person to person.

"I'm no gaun to his party"
"How no?"

But you'd say "Why aren't we doing gym today Mrs X?" to your teacher.

Or something.

Yes I say Why at work. How at home. Only in Scotland would asking a question properly be fancy I remember my mum telling me to put my posh voice on for our English relatives.

I left in1979 and my school was xxx high school.

"why" is not the letter "Y" in Scotland as we aspirate the "wh" in "why"; as we do with all words with "wh", so in the phrase "Which witch is which", "which" and "witch" do sound different. The letter "Y" is sounded "Wye".

The how/why thing is more complicated than just formal and informal IMO...

It’s kind of technically possible to say how are we not doing gym today? But you’re more likely to hear how come we’re not doing gym? Or why are we not doing gym? Whether it’s to a teacher or a classmate.

Yes you do tend to get a code switch going on with how and why, you don’t say how no? To the police when they tell you gonnae no do that...

But, it’s also more likely to be used just by itself than in a full sentence anyway.

So if someone said anything to you where you’d be using standard English and your response is likely to be why, it would be a proper question because why or how by itself is abrupt... so you’d really only use it informally anyway.

Other things are a more obvious code switch... yous for example, that’s one you just swap out.

But how you’d never really be using if you were in standard English anyway, because it’d be rude to just go why? To something.

That's interesting, Tabula

Funnily enough I was just wondering (I have no life) if "how" (for why) had evolved as an abbreviated form of "how come".

Mine was called high school aswell.

I went to middle school too, so my high school wouldn't have been secondary school anyway, should I could call it "tertiary school"?

Love the word ‘jotter’, I remember in taggart the immortal line ‘yer a bawhair away far yer jotters’ And forgotnit could mean being sacked!

I went to high school in 1986 - that’s what it was called in Wales. The school is still called X High School.

DS goes to secondary school in England, haven’t heard anyone refer to it as high school.